The Monday Roundup: what we are watching this week | December 5th

By Puja Sharma

The Monday Roundup sets the scene for the week’s biggest news stories, industry deals, and upcoming events. For Prime subscribers only.

Customer the king

Al Rajhi Bank Malaysia (ARBM) announced that it has officially launched its digital bank arm Rize where a wide range of its services are already available and more will be rolled out progressively.

Rize’s product offerings are pretty standard for that of a bank – deposits, withdrawals, and transfers, account management and personal finance management, debit card application, purchase, and maintenance, ATM services, and e-statements as well as personal financing.

The digital bank said that its financing offering is personalised according to a customer’s life goals. The Personal Financing-i by Rize requires only four steps during the application phase and 15 minutes for the funds to be deposited into the customer’s account.

Arsalaan (Oz) Ahmed, Chief Executive Officer, of Al Rajhi Bank Malaysia said, “Today, we are pleased to announce the launch of Al Rajhi Bank Malaysia’s digital bank—Rize.  At its core, Rize is a digital bank seeking to inspire and empower our customers—whom we call Rizers—to achieve their hopes and dreams and encourage friends and family to help them realise their goals.

All a Rizers’ banking needs will be made available on their smartphone without the need to go to a physical branch. From the get-go, we will offer a wide range of financial services as you download the app today. In time, we will have a robust marketplace powered by a market-leading embedded finance ecosystem.”

✂️Global FinTech software provider Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) has started laying off its employees in India, a year after it announced plans to hire 10,000 people in the country, according to the local media report.

An FIS spokesperson said, “During the FIS Q3 2022 earnings call, we introduced our plan to address current macroeconomic challenges. Rightsizing our portfolio and our workforce has always been an important part of our growth strategy to serve our clients and meet market demand. FIS has had a presence in India for more than two decades and remains committed to this important market for its continued growth,”.

The company employs around 3,000 people in Pune, including in-house and third-party recruitments. The company, which operates from six locations in India, has a headcount of over 20,000 people in the country but there was no clarity on lay-offs elsewhere.

Financial backing

Singapore’s Matrixport secured the biggest deal, pulling in $100 million. Following the close of the deal, the FinTech company’s valuation has increased by $1 billion to reach $1.5 billion.

The company is a one-stop financial services platform and currently offers a full suite of cryptocurrency services, including institutional custody, trading, structured products, and asset management.

Matrix port wasn’t the only Singaporean FinTech company to feature in this week’s top ten deals. InsurTech platform Igloo was the ninth biggest deal, pulling in $27 million. It builds insurance infrastructure which is powered by artificial intelligence and big data to help customers find policies that best meet their lifestyles and needs.

India-based lending mobile app KreditBee has reportedly collected $80 million as part of an ongoing Series D funding round.

The capital injection was backed by existing investors Azim Premji’s Premji Invest, Motilal Oswal Alternates, TPG-backed NewQuest Capital Partners, and Mirae Asset Ventures, according to a report from Freshers Live. MUFG also joined the round.

With the funds, KreditBee plans to diversify its product portfolio and bolster its technology to better serve clients. The FinTech company is looking to enter new verticals, with plans to launch digitally enabled secured loans, home loans, and credit lines.

KreditBee aims to surpass $1bn in assets under management over the next six to nine months. The lending mobile app currently has six million customers.

What is the buzz

The Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group has sold a 5.1% stake or 2.28 crore equity shares of the online insurance company PB FinTech at an average price of Rs 456.4 apiece through an open market transaction.

According to the block deal data available with NSE, the SoftBank transaction cost around Rs 1,042.52 crore. Among the buyers of the insurer’s shares were Societe Generale, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Max Life Insurance.

As per reports, the French financial services provider Societe Generale acquired 26 lakh equity shares of PB Fintech, while Morgan Stanley Mauritius bought 27.3 lakh shares of the company at an average price of Rs 456.4 apiece.